Intolerance Kills

Memorial of Saint Andrew Kim Taegon, priest and martyr,
and Saint Paul Chong Hasang, martyr,
and their companions, martyrs

Biographical Information about St. Andrew Kim Taegon
Biographical Information about St. Paul Chong Hasang
Information on the 103 Korean Martyrs

Readings for Wednesday

Reading 1 1 Cor 12:31-13:13

Responsorial Psalm Ps 33:2-3, 4-5, 12 and 22
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Gospel Lk 7:31-35

Reflection:

What an intensely full plate we celebrate today. First it is the memorial to the Korean Martyrs. This memorial is one initiated by Pope John Paul the Great who canonized all 103 of them on May 6th, 1984, early in his papacy. Not only does this raise the stature of the Korean Catholics (they now have the 4th greatest number of martyrs of any country in the world), but it also demonstrates the Pope’s great effort to bring the global church together by recognizing the gifts they have made to the body of faith that is the Church.

As this weeks events show our current Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, does not seem to have that same gift. Please do not think I am criticizing Pope Benedict, I am not. He was clear in his teaching but the situation with radical Islam apparently controlling much of the middle east make it impossible for anyone to cite the failures of history without causing death and destruction at the hands of these intolerant extremists. What my dark humor side finds amusing is a quote this week by an official of the Ministry of Information of Pakistan who said; “Anyone who says Islam, as a religion, is intolerant invites violence.” Enough said.

I would like to point out one valuable lesion our Pontiff learned. Even in a benign situation, using the Pauline rule of love we find in Corinthians today, we always attach actions, never people (or Prophets). Had our Pope, instead of quoting the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, simply attached the whole ideal of Jihad, nothing would probably have come of it. I suspect that more martyrs will emerge simply because the people who have taken his remarks badly enjoy the act of killing others as part of their twisted view of piety.

I have already mentioned the passage we have from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. I am pretty sure that at least verses 12-31 have been used in 90% of the weddings I have performed or been part of. The irony of that fact is Paul is speaking of our love for each other rather than a relationship between just two people. It is the best description we have of what “Love one another” is intended to mean.

I come back to the world situation. Pope Benedict did not make a mistake. Even though his words (in fact the remarks that sparked all of the outrage were not even his, they were explicitly cited as a quotation from the Byzantine source identified above) caused a furor in Turkey, Palestine, Egypt and Iraq the message he was trying to convey was one of love. His apology reflects the fact that he knows the correctness of what he said. His apology was that “…so many Muslims were upset by his words.”

We will not get into a very problematic Gospel today. I challenge you to understand what the Lord’s message is in that passage. I’ll just give you a little hint about what I was thinking; try substituting “cowboys and Indians” for the word play in the front and think about what Jesus and John the Baptist were really about.

Pax